May 3 2014

Wedding Anniversary

7 years 8 months ill …

Physical: Advantage CBD / Mental: Deuce

I remember …

my parents, Herbert Louis Lunnon and Doris Stanbridge got married today, 3 May 1952 (?) in The Strand Methodist Church, Western Cape, South Africa.

Oct 28 2013

Happy Birthday Mom!

Monday 28 October 2013: 7 years 1 month on …

Physical: Advantage CBD / Mental: Deuce

Today, 28 October, is the birthday of Harry Oppenheimer, Bill Gates, Julia Roberts, Matt Smith and Frank Ocean.

For me, most importantly, though, it is also the birthday of Doris (Stanbridge) Lunnon – my late mother. She was born in Maitland, Cape Town on 28 October 1931. She would have been 82 today.

But she passed away in The Strand, 27 years ago in 1986, after a heart attack at the age of 55.

It would have been great to have you over for dinner tonight, Mom. Maybe we would have even gone out for something special – that’s the way we do things in our Lunnon house nowadays. Maybe you know that!

I’m not sure where you hang out nowadays. Sometimes, I think you are really close by!

At 19 Gordon’s Bay Road, we usually hung out in the kitchen. There weren’t too many opportunities, and certainly not enough money, for us to go and eat out then! You cooked and we washed and dried the dishes and packed them away. Sometimes we laughed, sometimes we argued and occasionally we sang!

Even if I may say so myself, you did a good job in raising the four of us single-handedly and looking after Dad for those long years. You were only 38 when he had his stroke and you were left with that awesome task! June was only four years old! Sometimes we forget that you were a widow at 45!

I’m not sure whether you watch us nowadays – whether you see your handiwork in action.

I’m not sure whether you can see what we do on a big screen somewhere!

Yes, it would have been great to have you over for dinner tonight!

It would have been great just to say thank you. I don’t think we ever did say that. We didn’t think of it in those days and you left us so suddenly. There are so many people nowadays who leave us so quickly and we never take the time to say thank you or all the other things we should say.

I realize now how important that is! But I don’t always remember it too well!

I realise now, as Sean and Phillip start leaving home, just how saddened you must have been when I left home at eighteen and went to America, and to Stellenbosch and Oudtshoorn and Port Elizabeth. I realize now just how much you sacrificed for us and did for us in very difficult and trying times.

They could not have been easy times for you. Yet, I don’t recall ever seeing you crying. I’m sure now that there must have been many lonely nights that you spent crying alone in your bed and wiping your tears on the pillow. I think of you sometimes when I do that, and I wish that we had been given more time together.

Yes, it would have been great to have you over for dinner tonight.

Just to say Happy Birthday and Thank You and all the other things we should be saying!

You would have enjoyed Pera’s dinner. Between the two of you, I’m not sure who would have cooked in the kitchen and who would have done the talking. But the meal would have been excellent which ever way!

It would have been great to share Sean and Phillip with you. You would have been so proud of them. And I guess you would have been sitting with Phillip and his matric books and asking him all those questions, just like you did with me!

And you would have wished him good luck with his exams and waited anxiously for the newspaper with his results, just like you did with me! You even drove me to Cape Town to pick up that Cape Times fresh off the printing press!

It would have been great to have dinner together tonight.

Sep 27 2013

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Mother and Child Reunion

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Sep 24 2013

Heritage Day Helderberg Somerset West

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Sep 24 2013

Lunnon/Southwood Heritage

Lunch at Millhouse Kitchen Lourensford Farm Somerset West – Lunnon’s, Scholtz’s, Muller’s, Volsteedt’s, Southwood’s, Peach’s, Ridgeways – aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, husbands, wives

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Aug 19 2013

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Lunnon Family

May 27 2013

ED is in week EnDing wED 29 May 2013

Monday 27 May 2013: 6 years 8 months on …

Game ED

It’s been another busy week, with little time to write. And when I’ve had the time, I haven’t had the energy!

So here comes another skeleton, with hopefully the flesh put in at a later stage!

Mon 20 May – we celebrated Sean’s 21^st birthday at the Coachman Steakhouse; party to follow!
Tue 21 May – visit from Gill (Hospice); haircut with Grant @ front cover: Newton Park; meeting with Mike Halbert (accounts); drinks at VP Tennis Club with the Tuesday Boys’ Tennis Club of Wembley Tennis Club
Wed 22 May – AlgoaFM; coffee at Bluewaters café; gym; Sean’s u21 rugby at Old Grey; Neil Thomson and Rodger Gilson in Centre Stage’s Simon and Garfunkel Tribute
Thu 23 May – visit from Isaac; physio with Christelle Smit; Sean’s car at garage
Fri 24 May – visit from Ben; meeting PeFM
Sat 25 May – day trip to Grahamstown: Grey vs St Andrews (Phillip)
Sun 26 May – reunion meeting of our Investment Club at our home
Mon 27 May – meeting with Sr Gaynor Bishop of the MNDA(Port Elizabeth)
Tue 28 May – meeting with Sr Gill (Hospice)

Circa 60

About 60 – that’s the meaning of the above title and that’s our ages – give or take a good few years in all our respective cases.

“Our” being Neil and Pam Thomson, Anton and Ingrid Scholtz, Alan and Trish Stapleton and Pera and I.

And our connection being that some 20 years ago we started what we called our Investment Club.

We met once a month on a rotational basis at each couple’s home for a meal, and each couple “invested” R100 into the Club – Pera and I put in R100 each. My duty was to invest the monthly amount of R500 and to grow the money so that at some point in the future (round about now) we would cash in our investments and go on a “world cruise” together!

Two ‘hiccups’ occurred – firstly, each couple produced two more people and the group therefore grew from eight to sixteen people. Our children spoke at school about the Investment Club meetings that they attended on the last Sunday (or whichever it was) of each month! Heaven alone knows what their teachers and friends thought about this!

Secondly, at the end of year two, I think it was, when we saw the balance slowly growing in our investment account, we were tempted to draw the money and go away for a weekend together.

So, after that, we never ever gave the money a chance to grow enough for our world cruise, but we did, on an annual basis – round about Reconciliation Day public holiday in December – cash in the funds and spend a long weekend together.

We visited places like Hog’s Back, Katberg, Keurbooms, Knysna, Blanco, Blue Lagoon, East London, St Francis Bay and wherever the following criteria were met:

No self-catering by the ladies, within close driving distance of Port Elizabeth, activities for the adults and the children, inexpensive (at least within the constraints of our Investment Account balance), etc …

Well, we never would have had enough for that world cruise, but we invested tremendously in our children’s social upbringing and in their readiness for life. They learned to climb mountains, read hotel menus, order “passion fruit and lemonades”, play golf, ride horses, stage theatre productions, play carpet bowls, manage becoming lost and a host of other things that one could add to the list.

We all learned to enjoy friends and family and life and nature and good times together.

In the process, we amassed many happy memories and photographs and stories along the way.

Unfortunately, as the years passed by, and we all got older, it became more and more difficult to co-ordinate our diaries and do things together. So, some eight (?) years ago, we finally called an end to our Investment Club.

But, thanks to the labours of Pera, we managed to have a reunion of the adult members of the Club this past Sunday. Someone suggested that the Investment Club be renamed the Pensioners’ Club!

Needless to say, we reminisced (that which we could remember!) and laughed and ate and drank to Life!

Memories are made of this! (and please correct any of the above-mentioned “facts” that may be incorrect!)